Do the Memories Make the Man?
by thegrandoptimist
Summary: AU one shot where Tris and Tobias both survive Allegiant, but Tobias has had an accident. Tris struggles with her grief and the pain of her memories. There is a bit of FourTris fluff.


If I close my eyes for long enough, I can almost remember the way it felt. I can remember the unprecedented desperation of it. I can never really understand it, only the in-between bits of it, only the bits that weren't buried deep inside his head, or mine. I can never understand the feelings, and I can never quite recall the reasons for the things that we did. But I can still remember how it felt. I can remember his hands on mine, and the cool air rushing against my face. I can remember the blood dripping down my back, and the way Peter crumpled when the bullet hit him.

Sometimes I wonder if this happens to everyone. I wonder if we all come undone. I wonder if everyone feels like they can no longer trust the things their brain tells them about that they thought and felt. I wonder if they too can only trust the things they saw with their own eyes. But then I think that maybe my memory has joined forces with my eyes to play a cruel joke on me. What if it's all a lie? What if my memory has shifted and convoluted over time? The brain playing tricks on the brain. Pulling itself to pieces one day at a time.

Perhaps this is what I deserve for all the things that I did. But then again, perhaps this is my brain protecting me, shielding me from the memories it knows I can no longer deal with. Perhaps emptiness is preferable to unbearable guilt, like a thick, oily cloud hovering over your head. Perhaps forgetting is easier to cope with than remembering. Remembering all the things that were there, remembering the hole that was left when he was lost to me.

It comes to me sometimes, in brief images, in stolen thoughts, in a black jacket, or a passerby's tattoo. And then it's like a dam has been broken and it's all I can do not to crumble. Not to curl up in the supermarket and howl for all the memories flooding my senses. I long for them. I long to be back there with him. I would fire every bullet again just to be there with him. I would stare into a hundred empty eyes if it meant saving him. I would bear the guilt of all those lost souls so that he would have to bare none of it.

But I can't. It's too late, and he is too gone.

One might think that it's hardest when I revisit all the deaths I caused. That it is most trying when I have to stare into Will's eyes and pull the trigger. Over, and over, and over. It tears me to pieces every time. It always has, but things that really hurt are remembering the liberation I felt when I jumped on initiation day, or remembering the way that Christina, Will and I laughed together. The happiest memories hurt the most, because I know that I will never feel those things again. I am spent. There's no happiness left for me; I've had far more than my fare share.

But nothing hurts so much as remembering him. The way his muscles tighten as he pulls himself onto the train. The way he looked at me when I landed in that net. The softness in his heart. The fact that he had to leave the room during my initiation fights. All the times he saved me. The way he believed in my strength so fiercely that I believed in it myself, even when there was none.

And then, that night. I have no trouble remembering that night, though I hardly ever call it to the front of my mind. When I think of it, my throat tightens and my skin erupts in goose pimples. When I think of it, I feel as though I may deteriorate from the sheer pain of it. The injustice of it.

_I leant against his chest and sighed, breathing him in the way I always did when I was this close. It wasn't something I thought about really, it was more instinctive, like I wanted to breathe him into me; absorb every part of him that I could. He smelt the way he always did, like danger and safety all tangled up - like Tobias. He ran his hands down my arms and kissed my forehead, and I curled further into him. _

_I could hear his heart racing against my head; I could feel his warmth and the firmness of his musculature. There were times with him that I just wanted to be as close as possible - to make every part of us touch, in the most intimate of ways. _

_I tilted my head up so my lips grazed his chin, and he brought his mouth down to meet mine. We met tentatively at first, but the longer we kissed the more frantic it grew. I tugged him closer by his shirt, and he pulled my waist in to meet his. Without really thinking about it (which was unusual for me, I know) I pulled his shirt over his head. All I knew is that I wanted more. More of him touching me. More of this, and more of us. I raised my arms so he knew it way okay, and he carefully tugged my shirt off. _

_I ran my hands down his back; up and down, feeling the smoothness of it. Trying to remember every detail of it. The way it curves, the way his spine feels, the firmness of his muscles. More and more and more and more. Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached for his belt. I felt his sharp intake of breath, but he only pulled me closer, kissed me harder, urged me on. I let my bra fall from my shoulders as his pants fell to his feet. Closer and closer and closer._

I shook myself from my reverie, clutching at my head, at the arms of my chair; at anything that would help steady me. It was too much without him. This kind of thing wasn't meant to be remembered by one person alone, and yet it had to be. My Tobias wasn't _my Tobias_ anymore. Everything that he was is gone, stolen by the memory serum. He looks the same, but the man I loved isn't here anymore; he does't even smell like him anymore. He smells sterile and clinical.

Sometimes I think it's easier to forget.


End file.
